Photo credit: AP News
Officials in Cuba have reported an island-wide blackout on Monday as the energy and economic crises deepen in this country of some 11 million people.
CBC News reports that Cuba has blamed its woes on a US energy blockade after President Donald Trump warned in January of tariffs on any country that sells or provides oil to it.
The Ministry of Energy and Mines noted a “complete disconnection” of the country’s electrical system and said it was investigating, noting there were no failures in the units that were operating when the grid collapsed.
It was the third major blackout in Cuba over the past four months.
Toomas David Velazquez Felipe, a resident of Havana, said the relentless outages make him think that Cubans who can should just pack up and leave the island. “What little we have to eat spoils,” the 61-year-old said. “Our people are too old to keep suffering.”
Cuba’s aging grid has drastically eroded in recent years, leading to an increase in daily outages and island-wide blackouts.
The Trump administration is demanding that Cuba release political prisoners and move toward political and economic liberalization in return for the lifting of sanctions.
President Miguel Diaz-Canel on Friday said the island had not received oil shipments in more than three months and was operating on solar power, natural gas and thermoelectric plants, and that the government has had to postpone surgeries for tens of thousands of people.
In February, Canada announced $8 million in aid for Cuba to “strengthen local food security and nutrition” amid the energy and humanitarian crisis on the island.
On Friday, Diaz-Canel confirmed that Cuba was holding talks with the US government as the problems deepen.
